Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators • Hacker News Board

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#101

Post by 2020aj » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:16 PM UTC

pard68 wrote: post #26

khzw8yyy wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You interacted with a homeschooled student who made it to college. Huge difference compared to the average homeschooled student.

Do you have any studies or sources to show outcomes of homeschooled children? I've since met many outside of college, they all seem far better off than the average high schooler I knew as a kid.

Is the average high schooler you knew as a kid representative of the types of people you now meet in your circles? Each stage of our lives is its own sort of selection bias.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#102

Post by iaw » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:17 PM UTC

I have a family member who was hired as an Emergency teacher over 20 years ago. They've since become fully credentialed, obtained their masters in education, taught masters students, and organized a particular program/subject at the district level.

Speaking with them, their experience has been the core driver of a successful teacher is primarily whether they want to be there and care about the students success.

Of course, when they were first hired they spent all of their free time crafting lessons plans for a subject they basically failed in high school. Studying the textbook and relevant material so they could teach it.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#103

Post by dan-robertson » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:20 PM UTC

GlibMonkeyDeath wrote: post #93

Here is the study for Massachusetts (saving you several layers of summary articles): https://wheelockpolicycenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/11/... In every category, emergency/provisional licensed median values were lower than licensed teachers, including performance evaluations, although these results didn't reach 95% statistical significance of rejecting the null hypothesis. Even if they didn't reach P < 0.05, wh…

The first plot in your link certainly looks inconclusive. It doesn’t look very close at all to meeting the statistical significance bar and I think it would be an error to conclude that it shows the emergency/provisionally licensed teachers were worse. But I wonder if other things might be going on, eg maybe COVID meant the emergency/provisionally licensed teachers were also disadvantaged from having less practice. And on the other hand, lots of them will have gotten much of the requirements for a license so it doesn’t really show much about the long term effects of changing the license requirements.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#104

Post by iaw » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:22 PM UTC

bitzun wrote: post #57

lolinder wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Can we please not get into the homeschool flame war here again? Every time it comes up it turns into a pointless war of anecdotes, because the data on outcomes simply isn't strong enough for it to be anything else (trust me, I've tried).

Sorry, I jumped in because I hadn't seen it before. I agree it's difficult to generalize at this point, I just chafe at the suggestion that homeschooled kids do better overall since I've heard it my whole life and my experience was so different.

I think the only conclusion I've been able to draw from anecdotes about homeschooling (having experienced it myself) is that outcomes are more varied than traditional education, whether there's a bias in that variance is not something anyone can speak to (as of yet).

A very smart student has the opportunity to get much farther ahead whereas a poorly crafted education plan and/or an unmotivated student has the potential for negative outcomes.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#105

Post by s1artibartfast » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:23 PM UTC

xhkkffbf wrote: post #56

gbacon wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This isn’t a realistic worry. Someone about to plunk down hundreds of thousands or millions for a bridge will exercise more due diligence than random selection.

Do you think so? There are already several sad examples of political leaders who insisted on people of their favorite race or sex. The bridges collapsed. The problem with the system is that the political leaders are spending other peoples money and they'll make decisions that don't always line up with the bridges staying up. The advantage of degree programs is that they add another layer of bureaucracy to mix. Yeah,…

you might be shocked to learn that degrees ARENT required for anyone building bridges and planes.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#106

Post by iaw » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

lolinder wrote: post #80

bitzun wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sorry, I jumped in because I hadn't seen it before. I agree it's difficult to generalize at this point, I just chafe at the suggestion that homeschooled kids do better overall since I've heard it my whole life and my experience was so different.

All good—this difference is why it always turns into a war of anecdotes. Homeschool outcomes are as diverse as parents are—in public schools we at least try to standardize, but not so for homeschool. And since emotions surrounding our parents are some of the strongest that we have, everyone who's been homeschooled has strong opinions of some sort about how it turned out. I'd be happy for the conversation to happen if…

I said in another comment before I read yours: homeschooling, having more outcomes at the extremes, lead to many people to have observational biases (and strong opinions) in both directions.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#107

Post by wharvle » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:24 PM UTC

scruple wrote: post #73

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It depends on the state, but in some cases yes. In New York there are undergraduate programs which provide an "initial certification", which is sufficient to teach in a public school for X number of years. However, you must obtain a masters degree before the initial certification expires.

I Googled around a bit. Looks like Connecticut, Maryland, and New York requires them and a small set of other states lock specific licensures behind graduate degrees. I sincerely had no idea this was happening. I have young kids, in California, but we haven't hit kindergarten yet.

States that don’t require higher degrees often have a wall on the pay scale that’s hit early in one’s career, without a graduate degree.

What’s weird about the market for teaching master’s degrees, at least (idk about PhDs) is that this generates a ton of demand for them, but it makes no difference how good the program is. Teachers don’t care because they don’t really matter that much for improving teaching skill. Schools don’t care—pay bump is the same no matter what.

This has all the effects one might guess on the quality of these programs—almost all are very easy, because nobody involved cares how rigorous they are, and one party would generally prefer they not be very difficult. Whole thing’s a joke, total waste of money and teachers’ time.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#108

Post by dan-robertson » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

Wowfunhappy wrote: post #39

I am very close to obtaining an elementary school teaching degree (46 of 49 credits completed), and as of this year I am a full time teacher at a private school (which doesn't have to care whether I officially have a license). My masters program is considered among the best in the state. Unfortunately, I don't have many good things to say about my masters program. The majority of my classes have been interesting but…

What’s the point of a question like this? Somewhere someone will have written down something they want teachers to be able to do and that will have been translated into a question like this. Was the original requirement bad or the translation into the question? What kind of system would lead to a better question?

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#109

Post by lesuorac » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:28 PM UTC

jandrewrogers wrote: post #94

dboreham wrote: post #10

Underlying problem: people don't want to pay teachers enough.

Teachers are paid around the median wage for someone with a college degree. The job neither has a high skill requirement nor difficult work conditions. What is the rationale for paying them more than the typical person with a college degree?

I'd count "dealing with parents" as difficult working conditions.

Re: Emergency-hired teachers without degrees as effective as licensed educators

#110

Post by graemep » Sat, Jan 20, 2024, 5:31 PM UTC

pard68 wrote: post #5

Makes sense to me. I attended public school all my life. Everyone I knew more or less had the same out look on formal education, means to an end, can I just get the spark notes, thanks. In college I interacted with a strange life form called a "homeschooler". Almost without exception they were smarter, better read, and had a desire to learn. Educating children seems to be far more than degrees, licenses, and CE credi…

I am a home educating parent. There is no way I could teach a classroom without learning how. Teaching one to one, encouraging and mentoring does not need as much skill. Most of us do it somewhere (e.g. at work). On the other hand I am sure the skill can be learned on the job, but teaching a classroom is still definitely difficult.

I also did not spend much time teaching as such: when they were young, lots of learning through play (even things like learning to read can be turned into games) and as they got older they taught them selves more. We have used tutors a bit for exams (GCSEs - British exams taken at 16 in schools though my kids sat most younger) but even then very little (two to three hours a week at most, and even that for just one year).

Home educating is a lot more flexible so kids can follow their interests. You can do a vast range of subjects (my younger daughter did Astronomy GCSE and is doing Latin, did Physics but not Biology). That combined with the study skills and self-discipline from teaching themselves more leaves them more motivated and better prepared for further study (and work too).